Friday, July 01, 2005
I On a Whim...
The American Community Survey arrived at our household yesterday. I love facts and statistics, isolated and in combination, well used or misused, and I love being a fact and/or statistic, so this is right up my alley.
I didn't expect answering the questions to pose a problem, but it did. It seems, if you are employed full time as a caregiver in your home without economic compensation (that's recognized as such) the U.S. Census Bureau doesn't take you into much consideration: You are simply a name at an address.
Why is it important for you to be represented, as an unpaid caregiver in the home, for the purposes of the American Census? The Census, folks, is where congress gets much of the information it uses when it decides how to apportion the budget. As well, when a category is casually recognized enough to finally have the Census Bureau take note of it in a survey, civil legal equality is on it's way for that category. Think of the question of ancestory. Once we began noticing that people share experiences based on shared ancestory and some of those experiences are unjust and need to be addressed by civil law, a variety of ancestoral background choices became available in the Census survey and these groups and their experiences could no longer be ignored in their plea for legal acknowledgement.
When I read through the census questions I realized that who I really am and what I am really doing, paid or not, is becoming so ubiquitous that it needs to be acknowledged and considered by society. This will only happen if those of us who belong to a particular ignored category begin skewing (not as in lying; as in accurately representing) our answers in order to set up a pattern of responses that points to us as a unique and attention worthy demographic. Fulltime caregivers are not the only people who make up this category. Unpaid, stay at home parents; relatives and friends who are gladly beleaguered with the care of an infirm loved one, whether the cause of the infirmity be chronic or terminal.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized the importance for all unpaid caregivers, part or full time, to pay attention to what each is saying about her or himself and the care recipient to which he or she is assigned. Part time representation of caregiving would have been a problem on the particular survey my mother and I received. It asked only whether "this person" did any work within the last week "for pay or profit" but included an addendum: "Mark (X) the Yes box even if the person worked only one hour, or helped without pay in a family business or farm for 15 hours or more..." Ah, I realized. I run the family business; thus, I'll mark this question (Section H, Question 23) and the following ones as though I'm an unpaid worker in the family business, which I am.
Here's How I Skewed the Answers for the family business which I run and through which I am employed:
The reason I am publishing my answers to certain questions is to make it clear how these questions can be answered to invent a demographic pattern, that of unpaid home caregiver who essentially runs an informal business by running a care recipient's life. If any unpaid caregivers find this questionnaire crossing their mail slot, give some care to answering the questions accurately enough so that your statistics bring attention to the category, and the plight, of the unpaid caregiver in the home.
I didn't expect answering the questions to pose a problem, but it did. It seems, if you are employed full time as a caregiver in your home without economic compensation (that's recognized as such) the U.S. Census Bureau doesn't take you into much consideration: You are simply a name at an address.
Why is it important for you to be represented, as an unpaid caregiver in the home, for the purposes of the American Census? The Census, folks, is where congress gets much of the information it uses when it decides how to apportion the budget. As well, when a category is casually recognized enough to finally have the Census Bureau take note of it in a survey, civil legal equality is on it's way for that category. Think of the question of ancestory. Once we began noticing that people share experiences based on shared ancestory and some of those experiences are unjust and need to be addressed by civil law, a variety of ancestoral background choices became available in the Census survey and these groups and their experiences could no longer be ignored in their plea for legal acknowledgement.
When I read through the census questions I realized that who I really am and what I am really doing, paid or not, is becoming so ubiquitous that it needs to be acknowledged and considered by society. This will only happen if those of us who belong to a particular ignored category begin skewing (not as in lying; as in accurately representing) our answers in order to set up a pattern of responses that points to us as a unique and attention worthy demographic. Fulltime caregivers are not the only people who make up this category. Unpaid, stay at home parents; relatives and friends who are gladly beleaguered with the care of an infirm loved one, whether the cause of the infirmity be chronic or terminal.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized the importance for all unpaid caregivers, part or full time, to pay attention to what each is saying about her or himself and the care recipient to which he or she is assigned. Part time representation of caregiving would have been a problem on the particular survey my mother and I received. It asked only whether "this person" did any work within the last week "for pay or profit" but included an addendum: "Mark (X) the Yes box even if the person worked only one hour, or helped without pay in a family business or farm for 15 hours or more..." Ah, I realized. I run the family business; thus, I'll mark this question (Section H, Question 23) and the following ones as though I'm an unpaid worker in the family business, which I am.
Here's How I Skewed the Answers for the family business which I run and through which I am employed:
- Section H/Question 24:
Answered all these subquestions by filling in the address of my home, since I work in my home. - Section H/Question 25:
X'ed "Work in Home" and skipped to - Section J/Question 33:
52 weeks - Section J/Question 34:
100+ hours - Section K/Question 35:
X'd "working WITHOUT PAY in a family business or farm" - Section K/Question 36:
My mother as her caregiver - Section K/Question 37:
Caregiving - Section K/Question 38:
X'ed "other" - Section K/Question 39:
Caregiving - Section K/Question 40:
Caregiving - Section K/Question 41 & Question 42:
No income
The reason I am publishing my answers to certain questions is to make it clear how these questions can be answered to invent a demographic pattern, that of unpaid home caregiver who essentially runs an informal business by running a care recipient's life. If any unpaid caregivers find this questionnaire crossing their mail slot, give some care to answering the questions accurately enough so that your statistics bring attention to the category, and the plight, of the unpaid caregiver in the home.
